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The second of the Club World Cup semi-finals saw serial winners, Real Madrid, take on current Champions League holders, Paris Saint-Germain, in what was sure to be a mouth-watering contest. French pair, Ousmane Dembele and Kylian Mbappe, started for their teams for the first time in this tournament, giving rise to the notion it would be an exciting contest as the former had 46 goal contributions in 2024/25 and the latter 48.
Even so, it's doubtful anyone could've predicted such a fast start with six shots at goal collectively before Fabian Ruiz put PSG ahead in the sixth minute. It set the tone for the game, which exploded into life again just three minutes later when Dembele fired home. Los Blancos were shell-shocked and second best in all aspects, with PSG retaining 65.1% possession in the first 15 minutes.
The quality of ball retention from the French side, too, was in stark contrast to Real's awful attempts at stringing a decent move together. If ever there was a snapshot of the changing of the guard in European football, the early stages of this match may well have provided it. Mbappe provided some resistance with three shots in the first 22 minutes, but when Ruiz bagged his second after another free-flowing move at breakneck speed, the match was already over as a contest with three-quarters of the game still to play.
To give some perspective on proceedings, Real hadn't conceded three goals in the opening 25 minutes of a match since November 9th, 2003, vs. Sevilla in LaLiga. By half-time PSG had completed 31 line-breaking passes to Real Madrid's nine whilst posting an astonishing 92% pass completion, and such was the former's dominance, that they had time and space to toy with a team who are in the opinion of many the best in the world, but who were restricted to just 23.5% possession in the first half.
PSG's CWC record of W3, D0, L0 when leading at half-time will have been an ominous sign for the Los Blancos faithful, and intriguingly, only their opponents in the final, Chelsea, have stopped the opposition from scoring a first-half goal in the tournament more often than the five times managed by Luis Enrique's side.
Despite attempting 300 more passes than Real, PSG had misplaced fewer (23-29) as we approached the hour mark. As an exercise in positional awareness, game intelligence, playing under pressure and accuracy when moving at speed, Luis Enrique will have been delighted by what he was watching, for it was almost faultless at times. PSG's superiority meant that it wasn't until the 58th minute of the game that an anonymous Vinicius Jr. had his one and only shot of the game, which was blocked. Indeed, Real's 11 shots in total saw just two on target in a match that was instantly forgettable for their expensively put-together front line.
